The ABC allows comments on some of our articles, as a space for you to contribute your thoughts about news events and participate in civil conversations about topical issues.

All comments are moderated and we make no guarantees that your contribution will be published.

Reply

Author

Email

Date/Time

03 Aug 2015 6:59:13am

Text

PreviousMessage

Just because the New Atheism makes rationality one of its core characteristics does not mean either that atheism (or rather the philosophy of naturalism underlying atheism) is rational, nor does it mean that theists have to have a low view of reason. The problem with people like Dawkins is that he confuses rationalism with empiricism. There is absolutely nothing in 'reason' that tells us that "all knowledge derives from sense perception" or that this closed system of nature is all that exists. This is an idea that is being read into nature, not derived from it.

I find atheism hugely irrational, because nature cannot account for 'reason' itself. If reason is merely an emergent property of natural selection then it is inherently subjective, and of no more explanatory power than mere animal instinct. Of course, the same applies to morality. Mind cannot be reduced to brain, otherwise reason is nothing more than a description of the process of cause and effect: I believe such and such not because I have reason to believe it, but because my neurons happen to be firing in a certain way!

Reason does validate itself. So what? Reason is a reality we need in order to draw conclusions, and I notice that the above article is appealing to logic in order to say that logic should not be considered absolute!! On what other basis can we make our appeal? Should we abandon logic in a court of law, for example? Those who slate logic would be horrified to be a defendant in a trial where they were convicted on the basis of 'irrational' evidence.Empiricism, however, (on which the philosophy of naturalism depends) is self-refuting, as Bertrand Russell pointed out, since its fundamental premise cannot be validated empirically. Therefore, the epistemological underpinning of atheism is totally irrational.

The comment about Goedel is irrelevant, since all this is saying is that there is a limit to human understanding (hardly revolutionary, is it?), and, guess what... he drew that conclusion by means of a certain tool: that's right, logic! So the only reason we should believe Goedel is by submitting to the authority of the very thing some people say he proved no longer possesses epistemological authority.

Reason itself cannot imprison us, any more than 'existence' can imprison us. Of course, the tool of logic used on false presuppositions can imprison us, but that is no fault of reason itself, but of the fallacious uses to which it can be put - as in the case of the New Atheism.

As a Christian, I have to say that an abandonment of reason, such as I see in this article, marks a very sad day for Christian apologetics, especially considering the rational own goals the New Atheists are scoring at the moment.